Tale of cops and truant teens signals deeper issues

We have had strong reaction to our story about Portsmouth parents calling the police to get their children out of bed and off to school.

Most of the comments have focused on the parents' lack of control over their children and whether this is an appropriate use of police resources.

Less discussed by our readers, but no less important, is whether police wake-up calls are an effective way to address truancy.

Let's address these issues one at a time.

We believe it's fair to assume that calling the police to get a stubborn child out of bed is not a parent's first option. To us, this seems like an act of desperation by a parent who believes there are no other options. Most of us have seen good, loving parents with ill-behaved, belligerent children, and we have seen horrible, irresponsible parents with children who are model citizens.

We're not willing to jump to the conclusion that children who refuse to get out of bed in the morning are spoiled brats who just need a good spanking to straighten them out. Let's give the parents credit for taking advantage of an available resource to make their children go to school.

That said, we don't believe this is a good use of dwindling police resources. Cities and towns are continuing to wrestle with rising health care and pension costs while property tax revenues remain flat. Police departments are no longer going to be able to be all things to all people.

A quick reading of local police logs shows that citizens across the region are quick to call the police rather than solve problems themselves.

Here are a few examples:

9:41 a.m., Nov. 14, Portsmouth — Checked on a truant student.

9:15 a.m., Nov. 7, Portsmouth — A resident reported a "strange car" in her driveway and noises in her basement, then called back to say it was her painters.

If police are going to continue to respond to calls like these, we are going to need to give them additional resources. If we don't want to give police additional resources, they're going to need to stop responding to these sorts of calls.

Finally, with regard to truancy, we do believe this is an important issue and students should not be permitted to sleep away their futures. Students who don't graduate high school are far more likely to struggle economically for the rest of their lives.

The question is, why don't these children want to go to school? Are they being bullied? Do they have a physical or emotional disability that is getting in the way of their learning? Have they fallen so hopelessly far behind that they feel they can never catch up? Are they staying up all night with various online games, social networks and other sleep-depriving activities? These are the types of questions parents should be discussing with the school officials.

If parents and school officials determine there needs to be a law enforcement component, then that should be part of an overall truancy plan, rather than a personal wake-up service for individual students.